I'm not "happy," so much as I'm totally depressed

Psychiatrists, support groups and web forums, even mass media talk about finding happiness. It's the holy grail of the new millennium... now that we've defeated poverty, violence, stupidity, and frivolous lawsuits of course. I'm not sure the goal should be happiness though. What exactly is happiness? Euphoria? Giddiness? Contentment? Reprieve from horrible depression? That's quite a range. It's a concept that hard to pin down anyway, like beauty. You just know it when you feel it. Is constant happiness even possible or is it always a contrast against a lesser mood, and quickly adjusted for, so that happiness can only be felt for moments at a time?

I think a more specific emotion like contentedness should be aimed for, something that's real and attainable, not an ambiguous concept that people have tried for eons to come to grips with. The risk is that someone feeling their way out of a dark hole might not know what is "normal," where they should expect to stop in their quest to feel better. That antidepressant use might lead right into opiate use. No, I think contentedness is much more realistic (not that it doesn't have its own ambiguities). It's what I'm shooting for at any rate. Am I content? Sometimes I feel like I'm reasonably content for someone who has no friends and spends his long, suffocating days doing nothing meaningful, unable to sleep. No, I guess I'm not content. Certainly not happy.